Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Should have separated combat/non-combat Trees

The game should have added an extra tree for all of the Quality of play talents, that are different from the Bonus to combat talents.

As it is, if you are playing on the most difficult setting, you are sort of obligated to take the +combat related talents.

One does not simply separate a talent tree into extra trees.
A special extra talent tree however, with unique GUI pink effects blinking on and off, stating "pick me" "pick me"?
Now that is the least one should compromise for. This way one is almost certain to grasp the implications regarding the futility of freedom of choice and experimentation.

However science is never about probabilities, no matter how strong. I would therefore suggest the utter elimination of talent trees, and any other mechanic where player input was thus far deemed necessary. One must above all be scientinfic.

Also, the key to success is overleveling.

English?

alas, just so.
And mind you, it's not even my native langue.

I think the skill trees are fine, my issue is Talents and loot, which seem to me to be a lot more important, but hey everyone has their own axe to grind.


But I think skills have an issue...so I can empathize with the view here.

To me, combat skills or anything that makes a character more effective in combat are gonna supersede any other consideration. It is already hard to have to take some things that are not useful in combat, Barter, Pet Pal, Lockpicking, Pickpocketing, crafting, blacksmithing etc etc, all detract from resources that are needed to increase combat ability, nevermind that they have important uses some of which can affect combat, -Blacksmithing and crafting to make better swords or repair combat damaged items for instance, barter to buy better armor or weapons, a higher level in Pyro, Aero, or Hydro magic for more better combat spells. It is a resource juggling game at that point, where do you get the most mileage?

Frankly, in rpgs I usually don't care about efficiency or highest difficulty levels but more about flavor. Problem is, of course, if you play multiplayer, you don't want to suck in comparison to your friends in combat. But this is a question of game design: If the game rewards the non-violent solution by smart talking or sneaking with the same amount (or more) of experience, then it makes sense to take non-combat skills and talents. In Fallout 1, you could discover more about the background story if you had high science, convince the final boss to commit suicide or sneak to the big bomb and blow it up. In Shadowrun/Dragonfall, you could find out much more about the motivations of the dragon if you had high biotechnology or magic. To some people, finding out such secrets is much more rewarding than being good in combat.

I totally agree with Arne about other ways than combat to solve problems ... !

Then sneaking or charisma (to win CIR minigames) is way more useful, I think .

I definitely agree that non-combat stuff like Charisma is a lot less appealing because the game has quite a lot of combat, and most of the time the only real option for avoiding it is sneaking.

But you cannot weasel out of the end-boss fights ( Yes Fallouts had alternatives that were good and still kept fighting as an option), I agree with more than one way to solve a problem being good, even though I do prefer the knee-deep in diced beast approach, there should be more than one way to solve an equation. D:OS is actually pretty good about it, look at BG's, IWD's or ToEE fighting is usually the only way, not that I am complaining.

I think the best philosophy is that non-combat trees should (and mostly do in D:OS) benefit combat in indirect but mechanical ways. Say you spend a bunch of points on Barter so you can buy better armor, more potions and arrows, etc, and thus do better in combat because of that. Not that the economy is really balanced so that barter offers you any real benefit except in early game, but the idea is there. Pickpocket and lockpicking should let you get some nice extra loot for spending the extra points, but they really aren't worth it as is.

If all you spend your points on is straight fighting skills, you should feel like you're missing out on certain item, non-combat quest solutions, and EXP benefits, not just some flavor. I expect the big patch will address some of the lack of benefits with some of the non-combat skills.